Closer with Three
by ThereIsMoreThanOneOfEverything
Summary: Oceanic 815 lands safely, but they manage to find and save each other. Jack/Kate/Sawyer


**Closer with Three**

The first time Jack meets Kate he's interviewing candidates to manage his practice.

"Hi, Audrey," He points her to the chair closest to his desk. "Have a seat."

"Thanks," Kate hands him a folder with a resume, references. He reads and she doesn't fill up the silence with words. A sign of confidence, he thinks. He's looking up every twenty seconds, though, until she feels she has to ask.

"Is something wrong?"

"Well, yes," Jack sets the folder on his desk. "First, have we met before?"

"I don't think so," Kate shrugs, clasps her hands around her knees. "Maybe we've passed on the street? I live nearby. How long have you had your practice here?"

"Three months," Jack says.

"It's nine months in New York for me now. That first year here amazing."

"So I've heard," Jack says, picking the folder up again.

After the flight home and the memorial service he'd gone back to work. But Saint Sebastian was too full of people who remembered his father, the scandal that drove him out and how he died. It was time to work in a place where he wouldn't imagine judgment or pity in every third set of eyes. And a year after the funeral that had meant New York.

"What's the second thing?"

"Excuse me?"

"It sounded like there were at least two things wrong," Kate says. "You said, 'First.'"

"Well, honestly, I can tell you've never run a medical office before. I'm thinking you worked in one, but I need someone who knows…"

She starts to stand. She's embarrassed, he realizes, she's looking down and shaking her head. He stands too, wishing he'd said it differently.

"Wait," He says. "I can't offer you the job, but can we get dinner?"

The look of 'who do you think you are?' that crosses her face then, the way she raises herself up taller than she was before walks toward him and stops barely a foot away: It ends up being one of his favorite memories of her.

"Are you hitting on me?" She spits the words out.

"No," Jack says, sees her reaction, thinks there's really no winning any way you answer that question.

"I can give you advice on what you need on your resume so you'll land the next job. Maybe you can tell me more about how magical New York is. I must be doing it wrong, because I haven't felt it."

The irritation melts from her face, most of it. She steps back and they sit.

"Mostly I need to remember where we've met. I'm not good at letting things go."

* * *

The first time he nearly walks out on her it's five weeks later. They've been to a play, a concert, three dinners and his apartment but not hers. He's learned she has no patience for rules. She tells him he needs to get over doing anything because he's 'supposed to' and he smiles, shrugs, tells her it's gotten him this far.

They're sitting at a restaurant late on a Saturday night. Kate starts fiddling with the candle on their table, watches him watching the lights of the Brooklyn Bridge practically above their heads outside the window.

"My name isn't Audrey," she says. She looks down at the candle and then up at him and she sees his expression hardening. Tonight will be her worst memory of them together.

"My name is Kate Austen. I know where you saw me, I remembered a few days after we met. It was on a plane, a year ago September, on the way home from Sydney."

There's a pause and she can see he's remembering.

"That's it. You were in handcuffs. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I wanted to see if it mattered, if we had anything. Pretty stupid if I told you and then we didn't. And now you can't turn me in. Aiding a fugitive, you know?"

"What did you do?" He asks and she turns to the window, folding her arms. Now it's her expression that's going dim and cool and distant. "Kate, what did you do?"

He calls her two days later and before he can ask she says she's decided to tell him everything. She does, right up to the point of the plane ride home. She doesn't say how she got away from the marshal or what she's been doing since.

The phone goes so silent it sounds dead and she feels her throat tighten, imagining the cops are already on the way. Then he says he has a tough couple of days ahead at work but what is she doing on Wednesday?

* * *

The first time Sawyer "meets" Jack it's pretty awkward.

Jack and Kate are in her enormous apartment full of leather, cherry and steel. The penthouse. His stomach is in a knot dreading hearing the story of how she is living here. Being with her usually feels this way, like he's taking his sense of right and wrong out skydiving. He pictures her arrested and him going to jail too - or just having to start over a third time in his life. It makes his nerves sing, but then he pictures not seeing her and that feels even worse so he keeps coming back.

Kate gives him the apartment tour and then they stand in the dark, their noses against the dining room wall of windows staring straight down at the park four hundred feet below. She says it's her roommate's place, not hers. Her roommate is in finance and travels a lot for work. Jack starts to ask a question, stops.

Later they're on the leather couch in the living room and a movie with the sound off is lighting the room blue and white. Jack's shirt is still half on. Kate's clothes are scattered where she's dropped or flung them. She's lying on top of him, guiding him inside of her, dropping back as slowly as she can until there's nowhere more for him to go. She stays there a minute, rocking, sighing. Then she pulls up and away until she feels just the very tip of him inside her still pressing her open. She loves that moment and so she does it again and again. She knows it's a tease, the unpredictable pace and the pulling away over and over again but it feels too good to care. She locks eyes with him as he whispers, "Stop it," and she smiles a hard little smile and keeps going.

Jack flips them both over and takes things un-gently into his own hands. He's biting at her mouth more than he's kissing it, one hand pressing down on her left shoulder, the other pushing her right thigh back toward the armrest. He's throwing his hips at her so hard and fast that involuntary sounds start coming out of her throat in time with him and after awhile they sound foreign to her, like they're not even coming out of her.

"'Angry Fuck' is on the menu again," she thinks later. They both seem to like to order it.

They're lying against each other, still catching their breath when they hear it.

Ting.

The elevator that leads directly from the lobby to the penthouse opens and Sawyer walks in carrying his suitcase old school style a few inches above the floor. He's trying not to mark up the marble in the foyer. The reading glasses he picked up a few months ago are on top of his head, part of his long hair is pulled back into a topknot and there's a lit cigarette in the hand that's not carrying the suitcase.

He looks confused at the TV being on but no one apparently home and it's only when Kate starts to laugh softly but manically that he looks left, realizes they're lying there and he walks very, very fast back to his room. He's laughing too.

"Excuse me, sorry, this is what I get," he says, his voice increasingly louder for effect, "For coming home two days early and unannounced. Carry on… if you can." He says the last part archly, flips the door shut with a grin and a salute.

"That's your roommate?" Jack asks. Kate laughs harder at the shrill tone in his voice.

Later Kate tells him how she and Sawyer met right after the flight home, at a bar close to the airport. He was there to drink and she was there because the marshal would expect her to just keep running and not stop at the bar near LAX.

They talked and found they had a connection of sorts. She advised: He was too smart to be making money the hard way forever. He listened: He did two more substantial cons with her help and then took the million-plus they'd made together and started investing it in some things legitimate and others not so much. They turned a million into many millions fast, and split it right down the middle.

Sawyer makes more money with their money now, and she doesn't ask questions when he leaves for a while. They do better together than they would apart except when he's in one of his furiously black moods that last for days or weeks.

"Do you know what those are about?" Jack asks. He's noticed and wondered.

"Yes," she says, "But I can't tell you. There's something he's trying to make right and it burns at him. He's a lot less angry than he used to be, though." She says it as if it's just struck her at the moment.

"Why New York?" Jack asks.

"Hiding in plain sight," she says, "And because that's where the big cash is."

"Why did you come looking for a job?"

"I'm done conning. Not for me. I worked in a doctor's office after high school."

"Are you still lovers?"

"Why?" She shoots him a look. "Do you want to marry me, move to Westchester and have kids?" There's a pause and then he looks straight into her eyes, shakes his head fast. "Then I'm not sure why I should have to give either of you up."

It's the second time he nearly leaves her but he finds he can't argue with her logic.

* * *

The first time Sawyer and Jack spend some time together without Kate they go to a game. She has a cold and doesn't feel like freezing for the sake of April baseball. Sawyer says the only real game is cards and Jack is a Red Sox fan but he got the tickets from a friend at work and so they go.

It's awkward at first. They talk sports and stocks during batting practice and order food and drinks in the top of the third. They don't talk politics because they'll never agree there, but find they like a surprisingly long list of the same music and movies.

"Star Wars?" Jack asks, "Really?"

"Of course. Who doesn't love Star Wars?" Sawyer shrugs like it's a no brainer, a dippy-assed question and then grins and looks sideways at Jack.

"You thinking about that scene?"

"Of course," Jack says, "Who doesn't?"

* * *

"Admit it," Jack's putting their plates, forks, knives in the dishwasher. Kate's drying pans with a towel. "He thinks I'm an asshole."

She shakes her head.

"No, actually, not true. He says you could stand to lighten up on yourself and everybody else but you're okay," she smiles, "for a suit."

"Do you think I need to lighten up on everybody?"

"Yes," she says, doesn't stop drying the pans. Jack doesn't say anything back.

Sawyer stops leaving town, for the most part. Kate's found a job. Jack's not sure when he stopped feeling like there was something that needed fixing in his life or theirs but that's gone too. The rest of the spring they spend some part of the day or the night together, some combination of them.

Kate gives Sawyer a leather motorcycle jacket for his birthday. On Jack's she gives him cigars and a cigar cutter. He's just setting them down, done admiring them for the moment when Sawyer hands him a flat, square box.

"Don't get too choked up, doc," Sawyer says, "It's a gag gift. An expensive one, but…"

Jack lifts up the small, gold musical instrument lying flat on its side next to a striker.

"It's for the credenza in your office." Sawyer greatly exaggerates the word credenza, spinning the 'r' around on his tongue, grinning. Kate is sitting nearby, laughing silently, one hand on her mouth and her other arm around her waist.

"Ah," Jack says, "That's good, James, that's great. A triangle. It's just what I needed."

* * *

In late June Sawyer is due home on a Saturday. Neither of them worries when he doesn't show up, but then it's Monday and he's still not answering his cell phone and they have no idea where he is. They talk about it but aren't sure what to do. Kate looks hunted, pale and jittery. Jack's finding it's eating as his mind for her sake.

Sawyer shows up Tuesday as they're leaving for a late dinner, stitches on one cheek and a bruise opposite it, cuts on his mouth. They're frozen in their steps looking at him but all he has to say is 'you should see the other guy.'"

Kate wants to sob out loud in relief but she's choking it back, turning her face to the wall because she doesn't want him to see her cry. That pushes Jack over an edge. If he'd gotten in Sawyer's face a few weeks ago the way he does now it would have been ugly but James doesn't even argue. He raises his hands, palms open and walks circles around Jack to avoid him.

"I know," he says, "I know. I'm done. I swear it's done."

He takes off his jacket, tosses it on the couch and looks across the room to Kate.

"I found him. Couldn't do it. I beat the living crap out of him and I walked away."

She does cry now, smiling through her tears, nodding. When Sawyer leaves the room Jack shrugs, suggesting he'll take whatever she's willing to share.

"He had a tough childhood," Kate says, wiping her eyes. "Times a million."

* * *

"Why didn't he kill him?"

"What?" Kate puts down her book, turns to him. It's a week later. They're sitting with their backs against pillows, against the headboard in Jack's bedroom watching the late news.

"A man steals his parents from him, wrecks his life: He searches for him for years, in a rage over it half the time. And then he just walks away?"

"I shouldn't have told you the back story," she pushes down her pillow, lies sideways looking up at him. "It was wrong of me to share that."

"I won't say anything to him. But I can't help wondering why."

"You really don't let things go, do you?" She says. "He told me he realized as he was pointing the gun at his father that he had a ton more to lose than he had to gain."

"Because he loves you," Jack says and she notices he says it factually, without angst.

"It's more complicated than that. Six months ago, he'd have taken his chances. Now..."

Kate sees he's not following her.

"He's worried about losing me. He's also worried he might actually get away with it, but maybe then you'll leave me if I don't reject him for killing someone. And he has you to lose too."

"Come on," Jack says, laughing softly. "That's a stretch." He's staring at the TV, changing the channel, doesn't see the twisty smile crossing Kate's lips.

"Good thing you just do the surgery and you don't have to diagnose the ailment," she says. He grins, doesn't get annoyed, another change in the weather he's missed entirely.

* * *

The first time they all go over the only line that's left between them, it's late July.

They spend Sunday morning waiting for tickets to Shakespeare in the Park, sitting and standing and sitting as the queue inches toward the ticket booth. Sawyer says it's kind of like church. Kate is reading quotes from the plays from a paperback book: Whichever of them calls out the correct title first gets a point. Jack is a point ahead of Sawyer.

"How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in it!"

"The Tempest," Sawyer says.

"It's my favorite," Kate holds the book to her heart. "I love that story so much."

Their contest ends in a tie.

"The guy sure could weave a tale," Sawyer says, when they get home.

Jack is grabbing a bottle of wine from the fridge and Sawyer's picking up the phone to order dinner in. Kate's flicking through a stack of menus, but then she looks up and in a glance she sees Sawyer on the couch with the phone in one hand and the remote in the other, Jack walking toward them with his forehead wrinkled as he's obsessing on peeling the foil off of the bottle. She stands there, something coming over her face that's overjoyed, sad to tears and worried silly all at the same moment. Then she takes the phone and remote from Sawyer and sets them on the coffee table with the menus. She takes the wine and the corkscrew from Jack, tosses them onto a chair behind her.

Jack looks at her, confused, waiting for her to say something. Sawyer glances down at the floor and gives off a soft, small laugh that's more like an exhalation as she steps toward him. He's not confused at all.

Kate takes Sawyer's left hand in hers and slides it up and under her shirt, flicking open some buttons to make room. Then she unzips her jeans, takes Jack's right hand and slides his fingers slowly in.

"Are you out of your mind?" Jack pulls his hand back, bumping Sawyer slightly as he does. He hooks his thumb through one of her belt loops, pulls at her.

"No, not yet," Kate says, "But I think we all could be in a minute if we get it right."

Sawyer laughs out loud, nods at Kate as if he's saying 'nice'. Jack looks over to him, sure he's going to give a huge 'no' to this insane idea and is physically stunned to see him staring up sideways at her, his eyes narrowed, smiling. There's more affection in it than anything lewd. His thumb is making small circles under her shirt. Kate pulls on his arm and he stands, and then his hands are on her waist and he's kissing her.

Jack is trying not to look closely at what he's tried hard to avoid picturing for months now. He can't look away entirely though. It's not like he thought it'd be. It's passionate, but a gentle, slow kind of passion; loose jaws and no teeth at all with many hungry little noises. Sawyer's arms are moving just where they need to be to support Kate as he tips her back, and Jack hears the air go out of his lungs in surprise at the three different things he's realizing watching them.

Sawyer stops gradually, pulls Kate up and turns her around to face Jack, helps her off with her jeans as she's unbuttoning Jack's shirt. Jack is shaking his head as she plants wet kisses on his neck and collarbone, her hands moving down once she is done with the shirt to undo his belt. His hands go to her hair out of habit, and she can feel him tugging harder at her just before the shift in his breathing starts to happen.

"This is wrong," Jack says, "on so many levels."

"You're overthinking it," Sawyer says, "As usual. C'mon…" he heads for his room. Kate follows and pulls Jack along by one arm and to his surprise he's going with them.

Kate will get flashes of that night for so long, of lying with her head against Jack's chest, him pinning her to him with one hand cupped over her eyes so she can only feel and not see Sawyer working his way down her with his mouth; later, Sawyer twitching hard against her tongue and her cheek, shivering as Jack moans for the first time, pushing into her; the way she came and then the two of them came nearly together and then she lost all track.

The first time she sees them kissing, their tongues sliding fast and loose against each other's just above her head she gasps so loud that Sawyer stops and laughs into Jack's mouth. He pulls back and bites Jack's lower lip hard, getting a long, surprised sound out of him, too.

"Damn," Sawyer says, grinning down at her, and Kate can hear in his voice that he's not done with either of them. "You're easy, you two."

Later Jack is in the living room buttoning his shirt, looking for his shoes, going home. He hears them in the room behind him.

"I'm going to lose you both while I'm in prison," she says.

"No one's going to prison," Sawyer says. There's a pause.

"Can anyone really run forever?" Jack hears her ask.

* * *

It's September 22nd, two years after the flight home from Australia. It's late when Jack walks in and finds the place dead silent except for the tail end of a crying jag. Kate's on the sofa with her arms crossed, a box of tissues near her hip and several in her hand.

He walks toward her, drops the bag of takeout food he's holding when he sees the deep red and purple bruises around her left eye.

"What the hell?" He turns her face toward the lamp, looking it over, running his thumb lightly over her cheek. "Where's…."

"I'm alone," Kate says, her throat so raw it's a rasp and he sits down next to her, half facing her and holding her hands lightly, giving her time to say whatever will come out next.

"I made him punch me," she says, looking up at him. "I told him if he didn't, I'd never speak to him again. The details have to look right or you're in huge trouble."

And then it's back, the feeling of falling, reaching for the ripcord, the feeling he's blocked out for months.

"Edward Mars has been in the neighborhood trailing me for ten days, at least," Kate says, and when she see's he's not getting it she adds, "The marshal. I thought I was imagining it the first time I saw him because I only got a glimpse. But then I saw him again, for sure, a few days ago."

For a second Jack thinks maybe she's delirious with paranoia. Then he sees she's dressed for work: Sweater, slacks, all made up at 10 pm.

"I've been dealing with this for years," Kate says. "They're coming tonight. I know how they work, how they build a case. They've been looking into who you are and now they're ready, I know it. I wouldn't bother taking off my shoes if I were you."

"Why didn't you tell me? Maybe there's time…"

"There's something else you need to know," Kate ignores the suggestion and he sees the resignation on her face. "You'll get your money back, your 600k. It might be tied up in court for a while. I took everything you had in cash, money markets and moved it. It's the only way to make them think you didn't know about me. You tell them I was setting you up, and you just found out tonight," she says, running her fingertips over her black eye. "You tell them I was about to run and you…"

Jack drops her other hand.

"Where's Sawyer?" He gets up, walks to Sawyer's room. It's stripped of his things, no clothes in the closet or shoes on the floor. It feels like a guest room, smells like one.

"I told him to go somewhere for awhile. They won't find him," she says. "The apartment is mine, it's always been in my name. They won't find him."

Jack walks back to the living room, starts pacing circles with a hand to his forehead.

"Tell me you're not out of here," Kate says. "Tell me I'm going to see you again."

"You're going to see me again," he says. She can hear he's annoyed she has to ask.

Kate starts to get up to walk to him, but they hear the first boot kicking the door and she sits back down, wrapping her arms around herself. She jumps with every kick. Jack doesn't move. When the hinges start creaking, she puts her head on her knees so she won't have to watch it happen.

Then the federal agents are telling them to lie on the floor, hands in front of them.

* * *

"Don't worry, she'll take the plea deal."

Sawyer is sitting in the chair across from the sofa, focused on slowly peeling the label off of the beer bottle in his hands. He has one leg over the other knee, kicked back.

"How long?" Jack is reading the newspaper articles Sawyer brought back from Iowa, a glass of bourbon on the coffee table in front of him. There are pictures of Kate being walked into court and a headline, "Ames native captured, charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter, assault on a federal agent."

"Not as long as you might think, reading all that," Sawyer says. "She's told them in great detail what she went through growing up. They don't want to risk a sympathy vote from a jury. And now her mom's changed her mind, won't testify. I'm told she'll get seven, could be out in three. Maybe a little more."

"Three years," Jack murmurs it, staring at the papers.

"You get your money back yet?"

"No," Jack shrugs. "I will. They found it. It's evidence for now."

"Having your cash tied up for awhile beats going to prison. Cash isn't making anything now anyway."

Sawyer has already caught him up on a lot of the other details: Kate's mom says she doesn't want either of them to try to come see her, was mad Sawyer took the chance and flew out there at all. He's found an apartment in the West 70s, is focusing on making serious money so they can move on and semi-retire when she's out.

"How about Paris?" Sawyer asks. "That was her idea."

"Paris is a great place to visit, but to live?" Jack makes a face, shakes his head.

"Somewhere warm, maybe," Sawyer says.

"There's time," Jack tosses the papers onto the table. "We'll figure it out together."

"Cheers to that," Sawyer says, drinks. Jack lifts his glass.

"Cheers to that."


End file.
